


Frame Memory

by ultharkitty



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultharkitty/pseuds/ultharkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spinister attempts to train his latest recruit</p><p>A short piece of fluff set before the beginning of the Golden Age. Not Marvel continuity - I've just taken the characters from there.</p><p>Written to the tf_rare_pairing prompt <i>Spinister/Needlenose, I'm coming up on infra-red</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frame Memory

The warehouse was pitch black. Spinister crouched behind a rusting drone, and adjusted his vision. A swift spectrum shift, and the world lit up in shades of flame on a blue as deep as the darkness had been. 

His quarry was here, somewhere. Hiding. 

Couldn't hide for long. 

Spinister rose slowly, careful to time his movements with the regular gusts of the building's vents. He crept forward. Tinge in the air, a pale flicker of warmth. Exhaust? Wrong pattern to be cause by the air-con; the breeze on his rotors told him that. 

He drew his gun. It wasn't his usual Nebulan partners, just a laser pistol. Standard issue, charged from a cable plugged into his arm. It would last as long as he did. 

Not that he needed the extra time. Another hundred astroseconds, he guessed, one fifty at the outside, and it would be over. His quarry was quiet, careful, but not careful enough. 

Red flickered two rows over, past tidy stacks of boxes and shelves loaded with stock no-one could sell. The tip of a sensor-horn, hardly moving, but hardly hidden either. 

With footfalls soft as the purr of his engine, Spinister approached.

His quarry didn't stand a chance.

"You're dead." He leant over the shelves, gun aimed, safety on. 

His quarry sighed, heat-center shifting as he slumped. "You gotta be kidding me!"

Spinister readjusted his vision, then switched on his lights. "I could see your head." 

Needlenose threw up his arms. "I'm never gonna get this right." 

"Train harder," Spinister said. "Practice. You'll pick it up."

"Sure." He didn't sound convinced. "How the frag do you get so quiet?"

"I train hard, I practice." Spinister tried not to smirk, but it was hard around his newest recruit. "Let's go again."

* * *

It was six joors before Needlenose got it. Six joors of tracking each other in the dark, six joors of patiently waiting, of leading the jet through the techniques again and again until he finally managed to grasp them.

He wasn't stupid, Spinister knew. He just didn't think. Or he thought too much, interrupting instinct and intuition with bare-faced logic. That might work for the senate guard, but Spinister's targets required a subtler touch. 

Luckily for Needlenose, Spinister was a great believer in frame memory. Get a mech to repeat the same moves enough times, and they became second nature, close enough to hardwired. 

Six joors in, and Needlenose grasped it. 

Spinister heard him coming, but he doubted anyone else would have. He let Needlenose get close, let him raise his gun, then spun abruptly, kicking out. But Needlenose had learnt - or his frame had - and he twisted, bringing Spinister down on top of him. The clatter was monstrous, and the impact made his rotors twang.

"Bang!" Needlenose tapped his gun on Spinister's helm. "I win! Finally!"

"I'll give you this one." Spinister stood, and offered Needlenose a hand up.

Needlenose accepted, and for a moment it felt as though he was trying to pull Spinister back down. Then he appeared to think better of it. "Fancy a drink?" he asked.

Spinister laughed; there was no mistaking the hope in that voice. "All right," he said, "but you're buying."


End file.
